Card Payments

This section offers a guide on a few selected card payment aspects and functionalities for your cards implementation. Our API documentation offers comprehensive details on everything card payments and can be found here

The Interswitch Payment Gateway allows flexible payment plans for the customer to choose from.

Card Schemes supported: Visa, MasterCard
Payment methods:: Credit cards, debit cards, prepaid cards
Currency:

One-time Payments

This is a payment type that is non-recurring and payment is done only once.
The IPG allows your customers to add and save their card details on your website or app so that in future when making a payment they avoid the lengthy process of entering the card details again.

Customers can save up to 5 cards on your website or app to allow for quick payments and faster checkouts . At the time of payment, the customer simply selects the card to be debited from the list of saved cards that are displayed on your channel!

Recurring payments

These are scheduled payments that occur after set intervals of time. Payments are deducted from the saved card in the interval set. Create a schedule flow on your app or website where customer will select billing interval and amount to be deducted and leave the rest to us!

Some of the use cases for recurring payments are: Monthly Rent payments, Bank savings and loan repayments, Service subscriptions, Sacco saving schemes et cetera.

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Note:

Recurring payments on Interswitch Payment Gateway are only supported on Merchant Hosted (API) integrations

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Tokenization

Saving card and recurring transactions are enabled through tokenization.

Tokenization is process of protecting sensitive data by replacing it with an algorithmically generated number. The customer’s primary account number (PAN) is replaced with a series of randomly-generated numbers, which is called the “token.”

In the transaction request, if you set the token parameter in the authData field of the transaction request to 1, we will securely save the customer's card number in our PCI DSS and PCI PIN security** certified environment and return a unique token to you.

The token & panLast4Digits can be used to ensure that return customers don't enter their card numbers on your site again to make payments and can also be used for recurring payment services.

Preauthorization vs Straight-through

A preauthorization transaction puts a hold on the customers account (fora specified period usually set by the bank) and guarantees the merchant payment of the amount once they have fulfilled their order. The funds do not leave the customer's account. The merchant must process a “capture” or 'Preauth completion' in order to actually debit the customer account and collect the funds.

In a straight-through transaction, there is no hold on funds. The transaction is initiated and customer account is debited immediately. This is purchase or sale.

Test card details

Visa: (No 3DS validation)
Card Number: 4111 1111 1111 1111
Expiry: 12/25
CVV2:123

Mastercard (With 3DS validation)
Card Number: 5200 0000 0000 0007
Expiry: 12/25
CVV2:123